This church (c. 1894) was organized by Antey Graham, Beney Graham, Samuel Graham, Will Hill, and Ben Wilson. The first sanctuary, a frame building, was built about 1913 and located near what is now S.C. Hwy. 90, it was later on Burroughs Road. In 1943 the old...
The Lighthouse & Informer, long the leading black newspaper in S.C., was a weekly published here from 1941 to 1954 by journalist and civil rights advocate John Henry McCray. McCray published articles covering every aspect of black life and columns and editorials...
This is the last recorded lynching in S.C. and the South. On the night of February 15, 1947, white cabdriver Thomas W. Brown was found mortally wounded beside his cab. Earle, a young black man, was thought to be Brown’s last passenger. He was arrested, accused, and...
“The Parsonage,” the home of Rev. James B. Middleton, stood here at 5 Short Court (now President’s Place) until 1916. Middleton and his siblings, born slaves, were taught to read and write by their father. After the Civil War, Rev. Middleton, his father and brother...
The Progressive Club Sea Island Center is significant for its association with events and people important in the Civil Rights Movement, beginning with the building’s construction in 1963 until the death of the Club’s founder Esau Jenkins in 1972. It served as a vital...
Thomas English was a prominent planter who had this house built sometime around 1800. After the Civil War it was purchased by the South Carolina Land Commission and sold under a payment plan to newly freed slaves. In the 1870s and early 1880s, the property appears to...
Built in 1936 for white students, Summerton High School is significant for its close association with the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down segregation in public education. In 1947 Levi Pearson, a black landowner, petitioned the local school board to...
The Tabernacle, a meeting house and lecture room, was built by Beaufort Baptist Church in the 1840s. In 1863, Tabernacle Baptist Church was organized by Solomon Peck of Boston with most of the 500 African American members of the congregation coming from Beaufort...
Constructed in 1860, this rectangular frame building with two large towers on the front corners initially housed a biracial Baptist congregation, with blacks worshipping in the large balcony section. After the Civil War, the black members formed a separate...
Taylor’s Barber Shop has been a fixture in Marion for more than 100 years. Rev. Thomas E. Taylor, who was born in 1863, founded the business. Taylor was known as the “white man’s barber” because he catered specifically to white clientele. The barbershop had marble...
Alfred Rush (d. 1876), an African American state representative for two terms during Reconstruction, was assassinated near here, about 1/2 mi. from his home, on May 13, 1876. Rush, who represented what was then Darlington County in the S.C. House 1868-70 and 1874-76,...
The Hamburg Massacre, which occurred nearby on July 8, 1876, was one of the most notable incidents of racial and political violence in S.C. during Reconstruction. White Democrats across the state organized “rifle clubs” to intimidate Republicans during the...
In 1897, local black schoolteacher Frazier Baker was appointed postmaster of Lake City by the new Republican administration of President William McKinley. With a new state constitution just adopted to remove blacks from politics, many white South Carolinians were...
Oberlin Faith Cabin Library in Seneca is one of only two free-standing Faith Cabin Libraries extant of the 30 built in South Carolina between 1932 and 1943. Built in 1937 by locals, the library received its books from Oberlin College students (Ohio) after a visit to...